The collection of images of Marcel Proust is titled The Ark and the White Dove, and when these two words that symbolize light and hope in the context of traditional Western literature appear in Proust's world, they are covered with a layer of lingering sorrow. As he said in the preface to his first published book, Joy and Time, he grew up mourning noah's fate. The image of Noah trapped in the Ark reminds Proust of his fate—he is always confined to his home because he is frail and sickly. And his mother, like a white pigeon, brings news from the outside world.
The Ark and the White Dove: Proust Image Collection [French] By Patricia Mount-Proust by Mireye Nadurel translated by Zhang Xinmu, August 2021 edition of Translation Forest Publishing House
"I put on a bunch of ridiculous poses"
There are two different ways to open this collection.
First, you can think of it as a realistic complement to all of Proust's works, led by Remembrance of The Age of Water (hereinafter referred to as "Remembrance"). The places and characters mentioned in the book have archetypes: we see Charles Haas on page 115, who is Swann's archetype; Madame Gaylmant's archetype, the dark-haired Mrs. Strauss, appears more than once in this collection... These photographs and paintings give our imagination a practical vehicle as it flows along his river of time.
Seascapes – Sketches, the painter Harrison's most famous work, is the prototype of the first painter in Remembrance
Second, you can also see this collection of images purely as a review of a person's life, and almost all stages of his life are presented in the form of images, although it is inevitable to give people a sense of floating light. In addition to Proust himself, some important figures who have been inextricably entangled with his life also appear in the book. We may be able to talk about the people and events behind these images, starting with the immortal photograph of Proust sitting on what is considered to be the Grand Hotel Ritz on page 119.
The page features two from a series of photographs in at least four poses, taken by Otto, and one of the original images was auctioned for 21,250 euros at sotheby's. It has long been widely considered to have been taken at the Grand Hôtel de Ritz, as well as in the original book by Proust's great-niece Patricia Mount, but there is an obvious contradiction in it: the photograph was taken in 1896 (another said to be 1895), while the Grand Hôtel de Las Ritz did not open until 1898.
So a more realistic hypothesis is that the photograph was actually taken in Otto's studio in Place de la Madeleine. This seems to be corroborated by his 1896 letter to his friend Lucien Tudd, the son of the famous novelist Alphonse Tudor. "Do you want me to send you a picture taken at Otto?" Proust wrote, "No, you'd better choose it yourself, I've put on a bunch of ridiculous poses."
The so-called "photo taken at the Ritz Hotel" was actually taken in the studio of photographer Otto
"I don't understand his work at all"
It is not a ridiculous mistake for people to wishfully assume that the location of the photo was taken as the Grand Hotel Ritz, because Proust is so inseparable from it. Without Liz, There would be no Remembrance.
The Ritz Grand Hotel, which opened in 1898, is a typical product of the "Beautiful Age". Later generations usually see France's defeat at the Battle of Sedan in 1871 as its beginning, while the years following the victory in 1918 were the end. During this period of singing and dancing, salon culture flourished again in Paris. Compared with Balzac's time, the salon of the "Beautiful Age" is still the position of the upper class, but the definition of this group of people is no longer limited to the nobility. The nouveau riche finally no longer have to sharpen their heads like Neuchengen to earn a title of nobility, and politicians, senior civil servants, etc. are also welcomed here.
Although the salon of the "Beautiful Age" has broken the limitations of class, it is still a circle that needs to be introduced to enter. Proust exuded an almost paranoid fascination with high society from an early age, and "vassal elegance" became a label throughout his life. While studying at the Condossé Secondary School, he entered the salon organized by Mrs. Strauss (Bizet's mother) and Mrs. Bainier through his classmates Bicai (son of the composer Bicai) and Bainier.
In 1889, Proust came to Madame Gajavi's salon, where he met an unavoidable man of his life, the literary hero Anatole Frances, who was then madame's lover. On page 108 of the book there is a brief introduction to the friendship between the two men. In 1896, when Proust published his first book, Joy and Time, France wrote the foreword to him.
But the preface did little to promote Proust's career, because everyone was talking about France, and the value of the book became minimal. Judging from the content of the preface itself, François did not appreciate the literary nature of his young friend's work, and he regarded Proust more as a good friend than a real writer. In fact, France did not really like Proust's work until his death. At the age of 80 and proust's death, François said of him, "I don't understand his work at all... I tried to understand, but I couldn't. But it's not his fault, it's mine. We can only understand our own contemporaries..."
Proust did not publish another book in the full 17 years after the publication of Joy and Time, until the first volume of Remembrance was published in 1913. Many voices in the French literary circles believe that 17 years is the length of time that Proust used to completely get rid of the influence of France on himself. But this was not France's fault, and 2 years after the publication of Joy and Time, the friendship between the two even reached some degree of peak in the Dreyfus Affair.
"The publication of Memories bothers me"
The Dreyfus Affair in France at the end of the 19th century shook the world with the intervention of intellectuals led by Zola. Back on the night of June 1, 1898, it was both the opening night of the Grand Ritz Hotel and the night when the Dreyfus Affair was in full swing. Just a week before Liz opened, Zola was appealed for defamation for writing the shocking "I Accuse" and was tried in court, when Proust came to observe with sandwiches and coffee.
On this drizzly evening of June 1, 1898, when a fashionably dressed Proust went to 15 Place Vendôme to attend the opening ceremony of the Grand Hotel Ritz, his heart was torn. A few months earlier, he had joined 3,000 people in a petition requesting a pardon for Dreyfus. This was done both out of his intellectual conscience and because of his own half-Jewish ancestry. Proust's support for Dreyfus, however, forced him to run counter to the values of the high-class social circles he had painstakingly worked into over the years. His benefactor, Count Montesquieu, took a sharp turn for the worse, and this evening both were at the opening salon of Ritz, but the Count deliberately avoided him. Montesquieu was later written into The Remembrance, which became the prototype for Charlotte. He was so angry that he was bedridden and admitted in a letter that "the publication of the three-volume novel (Remembrance) bothered me. "His body never recovered.
When Proust, who felt excluded from high society, was lost, François and he stood firmly in the same trench, which was not only comforting for him, but also a source of his combat strength. Unfortunately, like many of Proust's lifelong friendships, this mentor-apprentice relationship inevitably ended in an eventual demise. It is widely believed that ribet's prototype in Remembrance is France, which is also seen as an indirect reckoning of Proust's old literary heroes. Pages 158 to 160 of the book devote some space to Proust's idea of Begt's death, but in fact he died almost at the end of the revision of Begt's death. In the eyes of some critics, this is a classic "father-killing" action in the history of French literature.
"He was fascinated"
Proust's interpersonal presence is often thin-hearted, but he has his own affection, which is reflected in his decades-long loyalty to the Ritz Hotel.
Nearly 20 years after the liz opening night in 1898, it is still the most frequently visited place in Proust. But at this time, the person who accompanied him became Jean Cocto. It was World War I, and the skies over Paris were frequently threatened with bombing, while Ritz was still lit. In Liz of Vendôme, the author, Tira Marcchio, tells us, "He [Proust] was fascinated by the Romanian princess Sudra, who owned a luxurious suite here, and actively participated in every salon held by the princess." And Cocteau plays the role of a sober spectator of all this."
Proust and Cocteau met in 1910, when the former was about 40 years old and the latter almost 20 years old. Despite the disparity in age, the great resemblance between them led Proust to lament that the souls of the two were twins like people in a mirror. They became close friends almost immediately, and after Proust completed the first volume of Remembrance, Cocteau struggled to find a publisher for him. The work was repeatedly rejected, and finally the Grasser Publishing House reluctantly agreed to be published at Proust's own expense and abridged.
Among the publishing houses that rejected "Remembrance" at that time was Galima, who later became famous. The coldness of the publishing house is related to the negative comments made by the core members of the New France Review, represented by Gide. However, Gide himself apologized to Proust in 1914, which can be found on page 173 of this book. Coctor is said to have played a great influence in this change of attitude, for which Proust was grateful.
But as the war drew to a close, the two finally drifted apart. According to Arno in the book Proust vs. Cocteau, Cocto, who returned from world war I, underwent a dramatic change in literary style, and his "Cape of Good Hope" clearly showed a militaristic tendency, which Proust did not appreciate. In Cocteau's view, he had spared no effort to help Proust against the literary world, but when he needed the help of this predecessor, he did not get what he deserved.
They never formally broke up, but the chances of the two meeting were getting less and less.
"The ferocious bug stings itself"
In 1907, Proust moved to 102 Haussmann Avenue. He has since spent 12 years here.
From here, it takes only 10 minutes to walk to the Grand Hotel Ritz. In addition to writing, one of his hobbies is to entertain guests at Ritz. According to Zweig in an essay, "he was known for his hospitality and the amount of tipping he gave, which he gave ten times more than the American millionaire..." Zweig lamented that Proust "won the whole of Paris with his courtesy and generosity." ”
But we have no way of knowing how important friendship really was in Proust's mind, and his friends seemed to have been badly hurt by him. Lucien Tudor once wrote to Cocteau lamenting Proust, "Marcel is great, but it's also a ferocious bug that you'll understand one day." And Cocteau later admitted, "It was uncomfortable to hear Proust talk about friendship, which was worthless in his eyes." ”
The last year of Proust's life was spent in the Book of Pens, to the point where day and night were reversed. In September 1922, several asthma attacks completely damaged his body. Proust only occasionally left his room, usually at 4 a.m. after the end of the day. At this time, he would go to the Ritz Grand Hotel for dinner of the day. But as time went on, he became more and more neglectful of going out. According to records, his last outing was in October 1922. This time he went out and caught him a cold, but he refused to accept treatment and did not let his brother Robert take care of himself. The housekeeper Celeste Albarè— who also appeared in the collection with her husband, Odiron Albarlet— wrote in her memoir, Monsieur Proust, that in the last month of his life he drank almost only drinks: a little milk coffee, but mostly fresh beer from the Grand Hotel Ritz, bought daily by the loyal Audiron.
On November 18, 1922, the exhausted Proust closed his keen eyes for observation forever. His posthumous photographs were taken by the famous photographer Man Ray and can be seen on pages 92 and 93 of the book. Man Ray took the picture at Cocteau's request. At the bedside of the deceased, Cocteau seems to understand Lucien's old analogy of the "ferocious bug." He said, "He stung himself to death. ”
Author: Shen Kunyu
Editor: Sun Xinqi